SHAME of a nation as cattle compete for roads with motorists in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja
According to ranking of countries with the most cattle or the world cattle inventory in 2021 there are about one billion heads of cattle. Among the countries, India has the largest cattle inventory in the world in 2021 followed by Brazil and China.
India’s cattle’s inventory was reported at 305.5 million head in 2021, accounting for roughly 30% of the world’s inventory. India, Brazil and China accounted for roughly 65% of the world’s cattle inventory in 2021. Nigeria is not featured on the global list of countries that breeds and exports cattle in the world. Even in Africa, Nigeria is also not found among the first 20 countries.
The domestication of cattle began as early as 10,000 to 5,000 years ago. From ancient times up to the present, cattle are bred to provide meat and dairy. Cattle are also employed as draft animals to plow the fields or transport heavy objects. Cattle hide is used for the production of leather, and dung for fuel and agricultural fertilizer. In 2018, India was home to the highest number of milk cows in the world.
Cattle meat such as beef and veal is one of the most widely consumed types of meat across the globe, and is particularly popular in the United States. The United States is the top producer of beef and veal of any country worldwide, according to 2019 data. In that year, beef production in the United States reached 12.73 million metric tons. Beef production appears to be following a positive trend in the United States. More than 32 million cattle were slaughtered both commercially and in farms annually in the United States in 2017, up from 30.7 million in the previous year.
The sad reality is the in all these countries that are leading in the breeding and exportation of cattle and other products from cattle, none of them is facing the sort of killings that go on in Nigeria as a result of clashes between herders and farmers. The fact is because the rest of the world has mechanised the way they breed and grow their cattle unlike in Nigeria where the Fulani who are known to be peasant cattle herders still continue in the stone age ways of moving cattle from one end of the world to the order in search of green pasture.
In the process, they ravage and destroy hundreds of thousands of farmlands and the provocation leads to mass carnage especially in the Middlebelt. It is only in Nigeria that the government is the one championing how cattle herders go about their private business. In other sane climes, farmers acquire ranches and breed their cattle and pay the commensurate tax to the states where the ranch is located.
The world cannot understand why the Nigerian government is still in support of open grazing, which has no benefit to both the country and cattle owners in the country as the country is not even recognised as a serious player in breeding of cattle
